This talk will describe the key driving forces affecting data center costs, developing and documenting detailed examples from available data, estimating costs and correcting them for inflation, and explaining the implications of the results. It also will explore some ways to improve data center efficiency, the most important and most neglected of which relate to institutional changes that can help companies reduce the total costs of computing services.

Organizations generate huge volumes of data that double every two years on average, the vast majority of which is unstructured. While the volume and velocity of big data increases, there are costs, risks and usability challenges associated with managing big data including end-to-end data risk protection, search, discovery and access – regardless of the file type, size or device. Data–intensive verticals that strive to gain insights from big data can gain tremendous competitive advantage by taking a data centric storage approach.

Big data has proven its value in many industries, but it has resurfaced the age old tension between storage performance and capacity. Advancements brought about with state of the art storage technologies can resolve this tension in big data environments.

Join us and learn:

- How flash can help accelerate big data analytics

- The pros and cons for both all-flash and hybrid storage systems

- How real-life organizations have used flash to overcome big data storage challenges and significantly reduce IT costs

In January 2015, IDG conducted an end user survey to gain insight into data storage management strategies, expectations, and challenges. 83% of respondents said that improving the user experience is critical or very important, and listed it as their #1 business goal for 2015. Likewise, 94% of IT professionals consider it valuable to manage business data based on the value of that data. Yet only 32% are doing it. Don’t get left behind. Join this webinar to learn about the importance of building prioritization into your data management and storage strategy.

Digital storage plays a significant role in the professional media and entertainment industry. Digital storage for the M&E industry has demand characteristics often very different from typical IT storage because of the performance requirements of real-time video in capture, editing and post-production, as well as distribution. On the other hand, the ever growing archive of long-tail digital content and increasing digitized historical analog content is swelling the demand for cold as well as warm archives using tape, optical discs and hard drive arrays.

In March through May of 2014 Coughlin Associates, Inc. conducted a survey of professional media and entertainment professionals on various digital storage topics. The survey was broken down into several segments: content capture, editing and post-production, content delivery as well as archiving and digital preservation. This talk will include data from this survey as well as projections from the 2014 Digital Storage in Media and Entertainment Report covering major uses of digital storage technology in professional media and entertainment.

All-flash Arrays (AFA) promise increased performance and greater storage density, but how can they be seamlessly incorporated into an existing storage infrastructure?
Join DataCore Software and Pure Storage as we discuss the power of combining the speed of all-flash arrays with the intelligence of an SDS platform to accelerate your key applications and resolve performance problems quickly and easily. We will also discuss a roadmap for non-disruptive migration from legacy storage to the all-flash data center.

Enterprises are only realizing 43% of technology's business potential according to Gartner. At the same time, most CEOs see IT’s role evolving over the next several years to become more involved in business strategy. Do you have a plan to drive innovation with new technologies such as cloud voice and video conferencing?

Sign up for this live eSeminar to hear Clint Edwards, Polycom VP Global Cloud & Service, describe why 2014 is the Year of the Cloud. As a leader in cloud-based collaboration, Polycom understands the dramatic ways that mature cloud communications are disrupting old models by enabling mobile and distributed workforces. Vi Chau, Director, Product Management at RingCentral will also give a glimpse of how cloud technologies uniquely integrate mobile workers into the core business. Finally, RingCentral customer Paul Clowser, Director of IT, Coldwell Banker Mid-America Group will describe the tangible benefits his company has gained from cloud collaboration.

Join this eSeminar and discover how:

•VoIP cloud has evolved and the mobile and collaboration capabilities you can leverage today

•Better phone system integration can eliminate lost deals through delays in communication

Business computing is changing before our eyes. Physical PCs and servers cannot keep pace with the mobile workforces of today or tomorrow. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is no longer a “nice to have”, it is a “must have”. The problem most companies face is providing secure and controllable access – anytime, anywhere – to the data, applications, tools and resources required to maintain an enterprise network. DaaS is quickly becoming the leading solution for companies to adopt a comprehensive BYOD policy while actually increasing security and ubiquitous access. Join Nuvestack, the leader in DaaS technology, for an informative and insightful look at what it really takes to implement and manage DaaS as a BYOD strategy.

New projects drive revenue. Every project is different, has different deadlines, and has different data management requirements. Delivering an IT infrastructure that can deal with the erratic workloads and constantly changing data needs is nearly impossible, let alone being confident that Finance will be able to run reports fast enough to close the books at the end of the month with no complaints. Join Chris McCall, SVP Marketing from NexGen Storage to discuss new value-driven data management capabilities designed to deliver a superior end user experience for project-oriented architecture and engineering firms.

Every year, businesses are making the decision to adopt a Unified Communications platform. Why? The reason is simple – Unified Communications capabilities save companies time and money, and increases productivity.

Today’s mobile and resource-challenged workers require more freedom and flexibility in how they communicate with their colleagues, teams, partners and customers. Instant Messaging, Presence, Voice and Video Calling, SMS Texting, and Screen Sharing features enable employees to easily connect with their colleagues, partners and customers. Each of these tools have an associated cost, which can add up quickly per user. By removing the a la carte price tags and contracts and rolling all of the tools into one unified platform, both the business and its employees reap the benefits.

The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement has been a huge boon for businesses that put a premium on productivity. File sync and share solutions have emerged to help employees work from anywhere, at any time, on any device. In this BrightTALK exclusive, eFolder explores the top seven features that business should consider when adopting a file sync and share solution. Learn what is required for a file sync and share solution to improve collaboration, maximize productivity, and ensure security.

Coworkers have become accustomed to instant messaging on-the-go, video chatting while offsite and single number reach. But, hidden in the background, is the confusing, long and time consuming task of configuring these Unified Communication conveniences.

Join us as Felix Delgado explores the labyrinth of provisioning within Cisco’s UC environment where one wrong click can lead to problems for the end user’s phone, voicemail or presence. Also, he will highlight a potential solution to these challenges.

With 40% of time at work spent on administrative chores, inefficient communication is a big problem in business. Find out how to use tech to reduce wasted time in meetings, spend less time in your inbox and improve the way your company collaborates.

About the presenter: Ray Gillenwater is the Co-founder and CEO of SpeakUp (getspeakup.com) an Enterprise Collaboration platform that enables collaborative problem solving and ideation. A student of Communications and a former executive at BlackBerry, Ray will share his experience and recommendations to help improve communication at your company.

A lot has changed in the way we communicate for business. A decade ago, most organizations had employees who came to the office every day, used desktop computers and desk phones, and stopped communicating for work when they went home.

Today, people communicate for work anywhere, anytime, and on any device. Per Forrester, sixty-six percent of employees use two or more mobile devices for work. And according to Frost & Sullivan, nearly 25 percent of employees work from home or the road. What’s more, the desk phone is not the only business device. Based on a RingCentral survey, 35 percent of employees are using their mobile phones for work even when they are in the office. And nearly 80 percent of employees text for business, with 32 percent reporting that they’ve even closed a business deal via text.

Even with these undeniable business behavior changes, the vast majority of companies haven’t optimized their communications infrastructure for mobile workforces or BYOD.

Join this webinar to get ahead of the pack and learn the benefits of a cloud communications solution that supports the new world of work.

•Understand the trends driving mobility and behavior changes in the work place, with Melanie Turek, VP of Research for Enterprise Communication & Collaboration, Frost & Sullivan.
•Get the real story from a business that has addressed their mobility needs first hand from Adam Fishman, director of growth and operations for Lyft, a community ride-sharing service.
•Hear how a cloud communications solution is addressing several challenges businesses face in the new work world from Nisha Ahluwalia, VP of product marketing at RingCentral.

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) has existed for many years as an interconnect technology, providing low latency and high bandwidth in computing clusters. More recently, RDMA has gained traction as a method for accelerating storage connectivity and interconnectivity on Ethernet. In this Webcast, experts will cover:

•Storage protocols that take advantage of RDMA
•Overview of iSER for block storage
•Deep dive of SMB Direct for file storage
•Benefits of available RDMA technologies to accelerate your Ethernet storage connectivity, both iWARP and RoCE

With 75% of enterprise users reporting that they use their cell phones for making work calls, the inevitable question we must ask is, "can we just run our business on cell phones and ditch the PBX?" In this webinar, we will review the massive changes in the wireless landscape that have made this viable in the past 3 months, the solutions that make it possible and what implications this has for the modern BYOD organization.

You may not know much about it, but Hadoop is coming in a big way. The list of services you provide and support grows larger by the day and very soon Hadoop related technologies will likely play a critical role in many of those services. Much of the processing that happens in Hadoop is batch related but the built in tools for managing that batch is inferior and will cause delays when trying to deploy the related applications and services. Join us to learn:

•What Hadoop is and what it is used for
•The type of processing performed in Hadoop environments
•How to deliver better Hadoop workload related services

The BYOD trend is a symptom of consumerization in the mobile/cloud era that presents an opportunity for IT to be more relevant to the business. Recent studies show more interest than ever in BYO “anything” programs, however this transformation is hindered by concerns over security and complexity. From MacBooks and laptops to smartphones and tablets, a BYO “Anything” strategy must start with the user, not the device. By attending this webinar and discussion, you will learn:
- How to take a people-centric approach to BYOD programs
- Simple tips for navigating through the policy nightmares associated with BYOD
- Key infrastructure requirement for a successful BYOD program
- How a successful BYOD program can lead to even greater value for business mobility

Milliseconds can mean millions of dollars made or lost but if you have to pay millions of dollars for it in the first place, is it really worth it? Loading up servers with flash or buying the most expensive storage systems on the planet have been the only way to achieve the lowest possible latency for virtualized SQL apps that require HA. Join George Wagner, Sr. Product Marketing Manager from NexGen Storage to discuss how new value-driven data management capabilities can deliver extreme low latency to the data that needs it without breaking the bank.

As a business, concerns over RTO, RPO, costs, security, and data privacy have historically made the decision for cloud backup a complicated one. However, cloud technologies continue to evolve, and can now provide substantial cost benefits while overcoming the most stringent security, data privacy, storage and performance hurdles. This makes it a perfect fit for many backup needs — especially remote office server backup.

In this session we’ll cover:

* The state of the cloud and the latest advancements for D2C server backup
* How security and data storage advancements are addressing key enterprise data privacy concerns
* How to leverage the cloud for remote office server backup and archiving, while significantly lowering storage and administration expenses

Advances in Unified Communications are being driven in large part by the necessity of enabling a remote and mobile workforce to be as connected as those in the office. As a result, communications platforms must evolve into truly unified, personal solutions to meet the needs of the changing mobile workplace. Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst with ZK Research, will discuss his new white paper titled “Mobility Drives Need for Personal Unified Communications.” In this webinar, Zeus will detail why a shift to a Personal UC strategy is critical for increasing productivity and engagement with employees, customers and partners, and provide recommendations IT leaders can put in action today to gain and maintain a competitive edge.

The Enterprise Architecture channel presents the next generation of enterprise IT: recognizing the strategic importance of the data center to make companies more nimble and competitive. These presentations will help demanding IT professionals achieve flexibility, scalability and performance with reduced risk and complexity.